


A Branch of Cold Flame

by deadendtracks (amonitrate)



Series: the possibility was a blade [3]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Missing Scene, Season/Series 05, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-05 17:13:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20492357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/deadendtracks
Summary: If we’d gotten ahold of him at the right age, we might have done him some good.Polly and Tommy make a visit.Spoilers for series 5, hence the vague summary.





	A Branch of Cold Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Peaky Blinders Emergency Response Challenge, episode 3.
> 
> Definite spoilers for the new series.

When she turned from the nun, expecting Tommy at her back, there was nothing there but the shadowed, cavernous room the sisters took their breakfast in. 

Polly frowned and slid her hatpin back into her bag.

“No manners, that one,” the nun said, already recovering her starched and carved composure, smoothing down her wimple. She slid the spectacles from her face and folded the earpieces into a neat tangle of wire and shards of glass. Set them back on the table. “If we’d gotten ahold of him at the right age, we might have done him some good.”

None of the other sisters lifted their eyes from their plates.

“You had your chance,” Polly said, and turned away, unsettled and hating it. That they had this power over her, these minions of the Church, even when they didn’t fucking deserve it. Even when they were monsters. 

The barren property around the orphanage was silent save for the hiss of wind through the nearby trees. There were no high pitched voices of children at play; she wondered if they were allowed outside at all. Too much temptation to devilry, probably.

Tommy waited where they’d parked in the drive, leaned up against the Bentley, smoking, a crushed butt near one of his shoes. His cap was pulled low over his eyes and his shoulders hunched in on themselves as the pale smoke drifted to fade into the grey afternoon. 

“What was that?” she demanded, coming to stop in front of him. 

He didn’t look up. Coughed into his gloved fist. “What was what.”

“The fucking snow is what.”

Tommy lifted a shoulder, attention still somewhere on the ground. “Witchcraft.”

“Thomas.” The cigarette dropped to the dirt next to the other and he rubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. She took a breath and tried again. “I know what they’ve done.”

“Yeah?” His hands were stuffed into his coat pockets now, and he was glaring past her at the hulking stone edifice they’d just left. “You know what’s in that file. That’s what you know.”

That’s what she knew. Right. “I wasn’t of age,” she said. “They wouldn’t let me--”

“You’ll see to the arrangements for the transfer?” Under the cap, she could only get a clear view of his chin, the hard line of his mouth, the shadow cast by the brim. “We should have enough beds, between the schools. Try not to separate--”

“Lizzie can handle it. She knows more about the schools than I do.”

His chin lifted and she caught something flicker over his face before it dissipated the way the smoke had, leaving ash in its wake.

“What happened while I was in Monte Carlo?” She’d only been gone a month, had things been like this when she’d left? She didn’t remember. She’d been busy. They’d all been bloody busy. “Ada says parliament has been tense.” 

That wasn’t all Ada had said.

“The fucking stock market crashed, Pol. Or hadn’t you heard?”

In the orphanage there’d been a moment at the beginning when she’d thought he wasn’t going to speak at all, was going to leave the whole business to her and sit there with his eyes lowered like some kind of penitent. Now the words when they tumbled out of him had jittery edges. 

“Are you taking snow now, Tommy? Or just wasting it on shriveled bitches with too much power and no human bones in their fucking bodies.”

“Oh, their bones are human enough.” He jerked the blue bottle out of his pocket and shoved it her way until she took it from him. Still mostly full. “D’you think we can cultivate a habit in them?”

“I think they have habits enough,” she said.

He didn’t laugh. He never did.

  
  


_ He kept going on about his fucking throne, Pol. Talking about Michael. What the hell is going on? _

His knuckles were white where he gripped the wheel of the Bentley. Polly risked a sidelong glance from the passenger seat but could get nothing from the nothing on his face, and his eyes were… like they’d been in the Garrison when her son’s new wife had said  _ he needs you _ . Like a beast that’s been stunned before slaughter.

She should have insisted she drive. 

“The operators at the Midland haven’t had any calls out from Michael’s room since he checked in,” she said. “Maybe--”

“I don’t want to talk about Michael.”

“He’s my fucking son, and if you’re going to accuse him of betraying us--”

“Betraying me,” he bit off.

“Because you’re the one who wears the crown, is that it?”

That got his attention. “So who was it spoke to you about me, Ada or Arthur?”

“Tommy--”

“Ada then. What’d she tell you, Pol?”

“She told me enough. First the black cat, now this nonsense about your bloody throne. Michael made a mistake.” The sound that escaped him was probably meant to be scoffing but it was too strangled to succeed. “He made a mistake, a stupid one, one that had consequences. He should have listened to you. But--”

“Yes, he should have. He should have listened to me. But no one fucking does.”

“Was there trouble with Lizzie, about Chinatown?”

“I don’t want to talk about Lizzie, Pol.”

“You don’t want to talk about Michael, you don’t want to talk about Lizzie. What exactly am I allowed to discuss, your highness?”

He shifted in the leather seat, flashing an unreadable look in her direction. “How was Monte Carlo? You fucking enjoy yourself?”

“Yes, I bloody well did, before I got the call from Arthur. You should go. You’re good at games of chance.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a fucking game to you all, isn’t it.”

“Thomas--”

But after that she might as well have been a phantom for all the notice he took of her.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Horses" by Patti Smith.
> 
> I will probably write more related to this glimpse, we'll see what the season does with it, but for now it's a one-shot.


End file.
